Relationship of Career Indecisiveness with Autonomy and Attachments in Adolescents: A Factor Analytical Study

Abstract

Career indecisiveness in the youth is on a rise at an alarming rate. It is a state of indecisiveness where an individual cannot decide about his future or career path. It has been estimated that between 10 percent and 30 percent of college students can be classified as “undecided.” In fact, in many cases, career indecision might be thought of as a normative phenomenon, closely related to an individual’s age and educational level, with younger and less educated individuals more likely to be career undecided. Career indecision is considered as a normal response. It may occur at any moment especially during transitional years of adolescence. Career indecision is related with age, gender, parental attachments and many other variables. In this study, an effort is made to study attachment with parents and peers, and autonomy in relation to career indecisiveness. For this purpose, a sample of 140 adolescents is selected with the help of incidental sampling technique. There are almost an equal number of males and females in the sample. The age group is 16 to 19 years. The psychological tools used are IPPA (Armsden and Greenberg, 1987), a measure of Adolescent Autonomy ( Noom, Dekovic and Meeus, 1999) and Career Decision Scale ( Osipow, 1987). Factor Analysis is applied to study the factor structures of attachments and autonomy in relation with career indecisiveness in male and female adolescents. A coefficient of congruence is also estimated to study the differences in factor structures of males and females and results are elucidated accordingly. This study will particularly be useful to vocational counselors.